Parthian Climbing Southampton Climbing Manager Andrew Waterfield gives his verdict on the new PETZL NEOX. Is it worth the hype? Read on to find out…

Looks like a grigri… feels like a grigri… but it’s not a Gri Gri… its a NEOX!’ The Petzl roadshow visited Parthian Southampton and the NEOX was the star of the show!

Spoiler alert… Its actually pretty good! who’d have thought you can re-invent the wheel… again… for the third (or fourth?) time. If you are already a self professed grigri master, you will appreciate the slick payout the NEOX offers. The NEOX feeds like a dream.. but there is a few ‘catches’ (excuse the pun!) As a teaching tool, sure you can reduce the amount a novice lead belayer will short rope their climbers, but you’re only teaching them how to use a NEOX, the skills are less transferable if you aren’t familiar with the behaviour of the original device with which it bares a canny resemblance!

If your climbing partner struggles to feed rope fast with a grigri, then consider the NEOX as an alternative. But BE AWARE, make sure you do your buddy checks because if you thread it backwards… it could catch you out (or not)! Will I be enticed away from my original MK1 grigri? hmmm… Maybe… Ok.. Yes. I actually think Petzl have got it right this time… Bravo Petzl.

It wasn’t all about the gear though, Also happening across the evening – customers also got to watch ALEX MEGOS smash some blocks on the competition wall before he got involved with some youth NICAS sessions, they witnessed FFRANCO COOKSON destroy our lead comp wall, and they got to play with some other great Petzl kit including the new Connect adjust coming early next year!

It was a pleasure to host the premier event of this Petzl tour and we look forward to hosting future events of this kind!

Thanks Petzl.